I went to my bishop as a teenager for help navigating trauma from childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. He connected me to some resources and was an empathetic and curious listener– too curious, sometimes. We met a couple times a month for about year. He was always physically affectionate with me giving full body…
Beginning when I was 9 years old, I had an older brother that repeatedly tried to coerce me into playing sexual games with my 7 year old sister. I was too young to understand what was happening then, but many years later I learned that he had begun raping her. When I wouldn’t go as…
This is very difficult so I’ll make it short. I was damaged quite badly by the shame I felt for so called sins and transgressions. I feel like I was conditioned to talk about things of a sexual nature to older men which I feel made it easier for a predator to sink his teeth…
I was fortunate to have the leaders that I did, they always treated me with respect. However, I did suffer from self-loathing and unnecessary shame due to the culture of normal sexual exploration being seen as a sin second to murder. I hated myself for years even though I was a pretty “pure” teenager, and…
I was a young adult during the time in which the internet and online porn were becoming popular. It seemed that every Sunday or General Conference was filled with endless warning of porn. I was probably an “expert” on porn before I had even had a chance to know what it really was. Before I…
I was molested at a very young age by a family friend. Then, I was molested again by another family friend from the time I was 11 to around 15 years old. He would touch me everywhere and spy on me when I changed or bathed. He stripped me down one night while I was…
I was a teenager in the LDS church in the late 70s and 80s. My parents never had “the talk” with me or told me anything about human sexuality. We didn’t own a TV and I was pretty sheltered. So basically my introduction to human sexuality was from my bishop interviews. When I was 14,…
My mother was inactive LDS growing up. My dad was of another faith. I didn’t go to church often, but would at times go play basketball with neighborhood friends who were LDS. At one of these shootarounds when I was thirteen, I was pulled into the bishop’s office without either of my parent’s consent or…
I’ve written about a hundred pages worth of material trying to figure out what I want to say and get it down to something less than a thousand words. This is around two thousand. My difficulty in being succinct is perhaps evidence of the severity of the trauma and my need to talk about it.…
As a young 13 year old girl, this was a very uncomfortable, if not traumatizing situation for me speaking to an older man about my sexual “transgressions.” This, in combination with the church’s many lessons about chastity and comparing me to a chewed piece of gum for losing my virginity shattered me as a person.…